


According to Your Nature

by clockheartedcrocodile



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: After the Fall, Ambiguously Erotic Asphyxiation, Dwelling on the Future, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Season/Series 03, Recovery, fantasies, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 00:15:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12995625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockheartedcrocodile/pseuds/clockheartedcrocodile
Summary: In which Will Graham breaks the surface of his Becoming.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some time ago, I wrote a short After the Fall fic, and because there were 30,000 other After the Fall fics out there, I never published it. Well, I am publishing it now. Both chapters at once. Making this technically the first fic I ever wrote.
> 
> I'll probably explore my real thoughts on S4 later, but for now . . .

He remembers water flooding his lungs.

He remembers the sting of salt in his wounds, and the straitjacket grip of Hannibal’s arms around him. He remembers the blood, and the moonlight.

Will wakes with handfuls of soft white sheets clenched in his hands.

He breathes deeply and feels the tug of stitches in his cheek. Slowly, Will props himself up on his elbows, but pain blazes through him at once and he falls back onto the pillows. He can feel the constricting tightness of the bandages wound around his chest. Freshly changed linen, now showing the scarlet stain of fresh bleeding.

A wave of nausea overtakes him. Every movement is an agony, so he lies still.

“No,” he whispers, his voice small in the empty bedroom.

Will closes his eyes and falls into a fitful sleep.

***

He wakes again to the smell of soup.

Will lies still, his eyes watering from the pain. The smell of soup is equal parts enticing and concerning. Somebody has changed his dressings again. His sheets, too.

Will attempts to sit up again, his jaw tight as he grinds his teeth together. He gives himself a brief once over, and finds that his wounds are not healed, but have been tended to. His is naked, but for his boxers.

There’s a silk dressing gown on the back of the door. Will stands to retrieve it, his legs stiff and aching, and he wonders how long he’s been in bed. His hands are surprisingly steady as he takes the robe down off its peg and slips into it, feeling warmer at once. It’s been tailored for a broader man.

The smell of soup is stronger now.

Will wobbles on his feet and presses a hand flat against the door to steady himself. He breathes slowly, intentionally. A pendulum drops in his skull, and when he opens his eyes again, he goes to the window and opens the curtains.

It’s dark outside, and raining heavily. Will thinks briefly about climbing through the window and running, but the thought is there and gone again and he shuts the curtains. The smell of soup is inviting, after all. He would rather taste soup than salt water.

***

He finds Hannibal Lecter in the kitchen.

There’s an elegant economy to his movement as he cooks. Will has often admired it, as he admires it now. He stands in the doorway and makes no sound, but Hannibal can smell him over the sharp scent of the scallions he’s cutting.

“What time is it?” asks Will. His voice is rough from disuse.

“Almost a quarter past six. Not quite dinner time, I’m afraid, but I thought soup might be called for.”

“Thank you,” says Will, coming around the kitchen counter into Hannibal’s line of sight. It’s a small, cramped kitchen, barely big enough for two. It reminds him of his kitchen in Wolf Trap, years ago.

He aches for his dogs.

He does not ache for Molly and Walter, and this realization settles like dark stones at the bottom of his stomach. There’s a table in the corner, set on uneven legs, and Will approaches it slowly and drags a stool out from under it. He seats himself in the middle of the kitchen to watch Hannibal work. He cinches the robe tighter around his waist and feels his scar ache like a war wound beneath his hand. More than three years old now, and it still pains him when it rains.

Hannibal doesn’t look at him. He focuses on the soup, stirring it till it reaches the right consistency.

“It smells delicious,” says Will.

Hannibal glances up, scarily meeting Will’s eyes before smiling and returning to his art. “Thank you. It is ginger-scallion egg drop soup. A meatless dish,” He lingers over the meal for a moment, before adding, almost as an afterthought, “When I see Dr. Du Maurier again, I would like to make her a meal worth eating.”

There’s a beat of silence before a laugh bursts from Will’s mouth, as sudden and harsh as the bark of a wounded dog.

He keeps laughing, the laugh higher and shriller now, and then the laugh is in his belly and he doubles over, struggling for breath. He buries his face in his hands and trembles, the laughter almost unbearable, and it’s only when it staggers into silence that he looks up and sees the way Hannibal is looking at him.

His eyes are shining.

Will looks away, his eyes still wet from laughing. No one has ever looked at him quite that way, not Molly, not Alana.

He can feel the hot and cold chills of a fever prickling along his skin. Will runs a hand across his mouth as he watches Hannibal cook, and he wonders what it would be like to spend an eternity just like this. Just on the cusp of a fever and watching Hannibal cook.

“Why,” he whispers. He hates his voice for how small it sounds.

Hannibal’s hand stills over the cooking pot. He doesn’t ask for clarification.

“Divine providence, perhaps,” he says, “or something else entirely.”

Will sees Hannibal take in the sight of Will’s face. The stitches are neat and tight in his cheek. Stitches that Hannibal himself made, in an effort to reverse time.

“That was the work of the Red Dragon,” says Hannibal, and Will hears something dangerous in his voice. It ought to make him afraid, but instead he feels like he’s swallowed a drop of fire.

Will carefully prods the wound with two fingers. The skin around the wound feels far too hot. “You don’t like that,” he says. It’s a statement, not a question.

Hannibal extinguishes the flame beneath the pot.

“I’m hungry,” Will says, a little louder. It feels good to say it out loud. To let go, finally, and trust that Hannibal will catch him when so many times he’s been left to fall.

Hannibal hesitates, then crosses the kitchen to crouch beside Will’s chair. He reaches up to pull Will’s hand from his face, replacing it with his own, and Will almost sobs.

“I’m sorry, Will,” Hannibal murmurs, “but our church will not collapse just yet.”

“I wanted to die,” Will whispers back. “I could die at any time. I could do it.”

“But you won’t, Will. You would not deprive me of the pleasure.”

The love Will had seen shining in Hannibal’s eyes is still there. It makes him feel raw and exposed, laid out on a kitchen counter for preparation. “No,” he agrees helplessly. “I wouldn’t.”

Hannibal has a smile like a genocide. “Now that you are alive,” he says, standing up, “you will have to reacquaint yourself with living.”

“Living like you?” Will asks, thinking of suits and wine.

Hannibal shakes his head. “Living according to your nature.”

“I didn’t want this to be my nature,” Will murmurs. He remembers the tacky sensation of blood drying on his hands. He remembers how it looked in the moonlight.

Black.

“You did,” Hannibal says, not unkindly. He returns to the stove and begins to serve out ginger soup into two shallow bowls. “You still do.”

Will accepts the bowl from Hannibal’s hands, the porcelain hot against his fingertips. Hannibal sits beside him, and for a moment, Will just looks down at the steam curling up from the hot ginger. He doesn’t think he can bring himself to lift a spoon.

Hannibal doesn’t eat, but he spoons up some soup from Will’s bowl and blows on it to cool it. It’s an intrusion, an indignity, but Will finds it comforting. A reminder that he knows what Hannibal wants, what he has longed for.

He’s a very patient man.

Will parts his lips and allows Hannibal to feed him. He remembers the last time this happened, the very different circumstances. “The world is darker for you being here,” he mutters, the taste of ginger still thick in his mouth.

“For _our_ being here,” Hannibal corrects him gently. “My world is more beautiful for you being in it.”

“I wanted us to die in each other’s arms,” Will says, watching for Hannibal’s reaction.

Hannibal seems to struggle to compose his answer. “We may yet,” he says finally. “I can think of no greater honor than to die in your arms, Will. My life was only ever yours to take.”

His sincerity is breathtaking. Will stares at him in awe, overwhelmed by him for a moment. Hannibal hesitates, then reaches out to lay a hand against Will’s forehead.

“You’re warm,” he whispers, by way of explanation.

Will leans into the touch, and he can feel the hitch in the steadiness of Hannibal’s breathing. He remembers when they met, when for the first time in his miserable life he’d found someone else who could beat him at his own game. It was like seeing a familiar face when all he’d ever known were strangers.

A life of conflict and self-denial. _What I am, and what they would have me be_.

Like that, the spell is broken, and Will clutches at Hannibal for balance as the world crumbles around him. For a moment, Hannibal stiffens in his embrace, his breath stolen from him, but then his arms come up to wrap around Will and press him closer, as if to swallow him whole.

Will whimpers into Hannibal’s shirt, exhausted by pretending, by running, by burying himself where the world can’t see. Again and again he’s tried, and again and again God or the universe or the Fates themselves have conspired for him to return to Hannibal’s orbit. Again, and again, and again, an interminable litany of terror.

He remembers Dolarhyde. He remembers the way his belly split for Will’s knife. He remembers the sight of Hannibal tearing out his throat with his teeth, and he moans. Hannibal’s hands are against his back, possessive rather than threatening, holding Will like he’s something precious. He buries his nose in Will’s hair and scents him, runs his hands along Will’s burning skin.

Will is tired.

Tired of denial.

Killing with Hannibal was beautiful. More beautiful than it had been in his fantasies. He knows he should be panicking, but he’s not. He feels safe, a feeling so long foreign to him. He feels loved. He feels cared for.

When he looks up into Hannibal’s face, he finds Hannibal looking at him like he hung the moon in the sky.

“It’s beautiful,” Will whispers, and his eyes close as the teacup comes together.


	2. Chapter 2

“I didn’t want us to live like this.”

“In beauty?”

“In debauchery.”

Hannibal takes a moment to think before he answers. He sets his fork down beside his empty plate, and he studies Will intently from across the table. Both still as stone, patient and eternal. The candlelight licks at their faces.

“This is not debauchery, Will,” he says finally.

“What is it, then?”

“Your Becoming,” Hannibal says. “You should be proud of yourself, Will. As proud of yourself as I am of you,” Will looks away, and Hannibal watches him with a look of blissful contentment. “My mortality is assured, Will,” he says, knowing Will’s mind. “Yours too. You have the power to affirm either, at any time.”

“I would have killed you,” says Will, his voice low.

They are acutely aware of one another’s movements these days. The merest sound of Hannibal’s lips parting is like a thunderclap in Will’s ears.

“I would have let you.”

The silence is intolerable. Will can hear the blood roaring in his ears. Hannibal, sitting opposite, grins like a coiled serpent. Now that Will knows the sound and fury behind that smile, these moments of silence are all the more valuable to him.

That evening, Hannibal had prepared a roast with gremolata, rosemary, and new potatoes. As with all their meals together, it was eaten with reverence, amid mutual smiles and the murmur of intimate conversation. Will hasn’t finished yet, a few stray leaves of asparagus still cooling on his plate. Hannibal eats slowly, taking the time to savor the smell and the taste. He is a man who denies himself nothing.

“You told me once that suicide was the enemy, Doctor Lecter,” Will says, enjoying the pleasing way the last four syllables click. It reminds him of his former life, before he slipped, dripping, from his chrysalis.

“Life is far too precious to waste so foolishly,” Hannibal replies. “It would be far from a waste to see you as you are, at the very moment of my death.”

“Our death,” Will says breathlessly. “I could not kill you. Not without killing myself. By necessity.”

“Tell me,” Hannibal asks, face impassive. “How would you do it?”

The question echoes backwards and forwards in time. It hangs in the air between them. Will rubs his forehead shakily, runs his hand down his nose and mouth as he inhales. “Intimately,” he says at last, too drunk on Hannibal’s attention to care if he gives his most taboo fantasies an airing-out. “With my hands. I would strangle you.”

He can see a glint of excited expectation in Hannibal’s eyes, as though he’s savoring every word of Will’s response. “I am larger than you,” he says drily. “Physically, I am stronger.”

“Only physically?”

The corner of Hannibal’s mouth curls in amusement. Will knows he can see his every thought written across his face.

In a thin voice, teetering on the edge before he falls, Will manages to say, “I didn’t want us to end up like this. I didn’t want to be what I’ve become.”

“Yes you did,” Hannibal breathes, his voice full of awe, and Will hurls himself across the table. He seizes Hannibal’s lapels as plates and glasses shatter on the floor all around them. The reaction is _exquisite._ Hannibal’s body arches as if struck by lightning as Will tears him from his seat and hurls him against the wall. He slams Hannibal’s back against it, fists clenched in the fine material of his suit. Hannibal’s whole body is rigid, every muscle tense as a wire when he grips Will’s shoulders.

 _“Intimate,”_ Will snarls. He can smell Hannibal’s skin when they’re this close. He wraps his hands tight around Hannibal’s throat. “I want you to see me.”

He watches himself strangle Hannibal Lecter, as though observing from a distance. The way Hannibal’s body shudders, his silent gasps tugging uselessly at the air. One hand leaps to his throat by instinct, trying to pry Will’s fingers away while his other hand remains clamped on Will’s shoulder.

It would be easy for him to break Will’s grip.

He does not.

The realization hits Will like a bullet to the heart. Hannibal’s not going to fight back. He will not fight back. He will not.

A cold sweat breaks out on Will’s skin, and he clenches his teeth against a sob as he watches Hannibal visibly shaking with the effort of holding back. Will can see the love and excitement blazing in his eyes, even as he gasps impotently and clutches at Will’s arms.

 _“I want to see you see me,”_ Will says again, and his teeth are out but he isn’t smiling. He feels delirious, and even as his hands squeeze tighter around Hannibal’s throat, it’s Will who feels like he can’t breathe. It all comes back to him, the wet dreams, the nightmares, the three a.m. fantasies, and Will wants to scream with ecstasy when he feels the phantom press of dark antlers at his back. He can feel every fiber of Hannibal’s being working to hold himself back. The strength in him, the sheer amount of power and force kept bottled up beneath his skin. Will presses closer, intoxicated by the sight of Hannibal’s face changing color as he loses oxygen.

Will can feel Hannibal’s heart beating under his hands.

He wants to eat it raw.

So Will lets go and listens to the sound of Hannibal swallowing great gulps of air. He stands slumped against the wall, chest heaving, clothes in disarray. Will’s delirium takes him and he almost falls, reaching out to grip Hannibal for support instead. Hannibal lets him, and they slowly sink to the ground beside the wall, Will leaning heavily on Hannibal’s shoulder.

For a long moment, they say nothing at all. The silence is broken only by Hannibal’s ragged breathing. He stares at the far wall and Will stares at him, enchanted by the purple and yellow bruises already blooming around Hannibal’s neck.

“One day,” he says softly, “we will be somewhere beautiful, you and I.”

“Everything you wear, I will have bought for you,” Hannibal murmurs. “You will be sated by the food I’ve prepared for you.”

“I will turn to you, and tell you that we are beautiful.”

“And that you cannot allow us to live.”

Hannibal settles an arm loosely around Will’s shoulders, and Will sighs, a long, exhausted release of breath. “Dr. Du Maurier once told me that I had found religion in you,” He looks up to catch Hannibal’s eye. “I wonder when our church will collapse.”

“Not today,” says Hannibal, with that secret smile that only Will is permitted to see.

Will is the first to look away. He rubs his sweat-slick hands off on the legs of his trousers. The adrenaline is still flush in his system. “There’s a piano in the next room, isn’t there?”

“A harpsichord.”

Will chuckles wanly. “I have a lot to learn.”

“I am happy to teach you.”

“Will you play for me? I’ve never heard you play.”

“Our dinner will spoil,” Hannibal says his his ear, his voice still hoarse as he holds Will closer. “It would be a shame to waste such a fine meal.”

“I have no doubt there will be many such meals in our future.”

Hannibal smiles, and his mouth is a work of art. He stands up slowly, his legs a little unsteady beneath him as he leans against the wall to help Will up. Will takes his hand and pulls himself up, and together they move into the living room. Hannibal’s harpsichord sits by the window, gathering dust. The keys are slicked grey with it, but Will knows it’s been tuned.

Will takes a moment to stretch the soreness from his limbs before sitting beside Hannibal on the bench. “What would you like me to play?” Hannibal asks, exchanging a look with him.

“Play anything,” says Will, so he plays Goldberg Variations, plays it all the way through, and outside Will hears the distant howl of a thunderstorm rolling in.


End file.
